Each year, the Writing University conducts interviews with writers while they are in Iowa City participating in the International Writing Program's fall residency. We sit down with authors to ask about their work, their process and their descriptions of home. Today we are talking with Mélanie WERDER-AVILÉS, a playwright, theatremaker and, scholar from Spain.

Mélanie WERDER-AVILÉS (playwright, theatremaker, scholar; Spain) is the author of the plays *Buena suerte, chica; Sharenting; Nutella Days; and Tiradísimo de Precio [Dirt-cheap]; among others. Her play La Protagonista won the Lope de Vega award. She has been selected as a resident playwright at the Spanish National Drama Centre and has been a member of the International Summer Workshop at the Sala Beckett. She has been awarded the Carlota Soldevila Fellowship by the Teatre Lliure de Barcelona and is a member of the SGAE Playwriting Laboratory and the ETC of Contemporary Creation at the Sala Cuarta Pared in Madrid, among others. She is currently researching documentary theatre practices as a predoctoral fellow at the Complutense University of Madrid. Her participation was made possible by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington DC and supplemental monies from the IWP. 

1. Do you have a plan or project in mind for your time at the residency?

As a playwright, I'm right now finishing a comedy about a small hotel located on an island. It's a dystopia: it's the end of the world, climate change is devastating us, but the client is always right: Yes business no matter what!

But it would be a lie if I only said I was doing one thing, I always have about a thousand open pages of notes, ideas, ... I really like to jot down conversations I overhear, little drama spots that are all over the place in this town. I'm also finishing my PhD thesis on document theater, so well, one day at a time!

2. What does your daily practice look like for your writing? Do you have a certain time when you write? Any specific routine?

Ah, no, I'm a chaos. I would love to be those zen tiktok people who get up at 5, meditate, go to the gym, then write perfect pieces without suffering, in the time they had planned it...

It is true that I do write every day. Even if it's only five minutes, I open a pending document, or the notebook I carry with me and I write. Then I look for spaces (the poindexter, the kindred coffe, the Graduate's terrace, the university library) where I can get into my projects until I lose track of time. I'm learning to know myself: between the desire to write productively (because I have deadlines, actors waiting their lines, etc.) and the pleasure of losing myself in writing. 

The routine I'm enjoying the most is thanks to my dear colleague Yuten Sawanishi, from the IWP, who proposes Suth up & write sessions. We meet, write for an hour, have a fifteen minute break, and then another hour. I find it very useful to share the concentration, to be by your own in another world and at the same time side by side. We also talk about what we wanted to write, and after the process, how it went. It's a routine that gives me peace: we didn't always find what we were looking for but we are on the same path.

3. What are you currently reading right now? Are you reading for research or pleasure?

I have a lot of books on my bedside table! I've been using my library card a lot! But the truth is that I'm reading Documentary Theatre in the United States, an anthology by Gary Fisher Dawson that is helping me a lot to understand the origin of this interesting mix that is theater and journalism, and It's what I teach at Complutense University back in Madrid. 

Luckily for me, it's all blurred, the pleasure I get from reading is very similar to that of the reseach, I enjoy this incredible work on American theater as much as I enjoy a posdramatic play or a graphic novel: I just read A map to the sun by Sloane Leong. The mix of formats and imaginary is what I am enjoying the most in this residency.

4. What is something the readers and writers of Iowa City should know about you and/or your work?

Oh! Well, I am going to talk to you with love about Menorca, an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the island that made me become a writer, I grew up there.  September is my favorite month because the island is waiting to offer us the calmest and most intimate spaces, when most of the vacationers have already left. I miss swimming in the rocks at the beginning of the day, walking with my friends around the harbor. If you google photos you will understand what I mean. Menorca made me become a writer but the city of Madrid, where I live with my husband and all my friends, has given me the possibility of theater. To do theater. It is an incredible city, huge, noisy, very rich and home to many people whom I admire and love very much. There is always a bar open at any time of the city! The streets are full of terraces crowded with people fixing the world.

But so far, I'm liking Iowa City a lot: I've been cycling all over it, and the amount of writers you find per square meter is exciting. Literature and theater are alive! I'm so happy to be able to share and see this piece of this amazing culture - I'm telling all my creative friends that they have to come and create here!

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Thank you so much!